Will E-Books Lead to Longer Novels?

I suspect that short stories and novellas might do well with e-readers. As individual units these shorter pieces are not too common in print, but I see a lot of them for sale on e-publishing sites like Smashwords. Some e-publications have less than 100 words and are still priced at 99 cents.

What's cooking at the Blue Fox Cafe?

I should have said I think both longer *and* shorter works will become more available. I know several people that write short stories but basically do it 'for fun' because it's hard to get them published. I'm sure there are many authors in the same position. Now they can published their stories themselves.

With ebooks, authors are no longer constrained by artificial word-count limits based on what size books publishers felt they could make the most money on. Why can't a historical novel be 60,000 words long? Or a romance be 150,000 words long?

I'm sure we've all read posts here at AW from authors who've written a book that ended up being outside the recommended guidelines for their genre. But why are we (authors) letting publishers decide what is 'too long' or 'too short'? The story itself should determine the length. Some stories are meant to be 10,000 words long (or 100,000 or whatever). Deliberately padding or cutting stories just to fit arbitrarily defined limits is silly, yet many of us here have fallen into that trap.

(Of course, this is all based on the assumption that the story is 'good'. I've read many books that felt 'bloated' to me and I've also read many books that I wished had been longer.)

I think you are conflating ebook format with self-publishing and each has it's own set of interested factors that interact.

If the author is looking at being a professional ebook writer the short lengths are the currently best approach in most cases.

If they wrote a book and can't get it print published, epublishing is possible, but is it ideal--will they write more and make good money? I would suggest that they usually won't (with exceptions).

The ebook market is currently very different from the print book market (although they are converging) and has its own strong genres, length, price and vendor preferences.

What is possible is not necessarily what is profitable.

AmsterdamAssassin said:

However, most books can stand to lose 20-30% of their volume. Not just to slim them down, but also to tighten the novel - verbosity is a malady that affects many writers and if writers don't force themselves to slim down their epic tomes, there is a big chance that bloated self-published books become the norm...

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True that.

I'm inclined to say that consumers are ultimately at fault. Some people tend to buy books by the pound. Electronic publishing might exacerbate the trend. I personally don't see a renaissance in short stories and novellas.

AmericaMadeMe said:

I'm inclined to say that consumers are ultimately at fault.

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How can they be at fault if publishers don't give them the option of buying shorter books?

With a few books I've read in the last few years I've felt that you could cut 20-30% out without really losing anything. I'd rather read an entertaining 50,000 word novel than a stodgy 100,000 word version of the same story.

From a business point of view the consumer cannot be at fault. It's their money, the onus of getting it out of their hands and into ours rests with us.

veinglory said:

The ebook market is currently very different from the print book market (although they are converging) and has its own strong genres, length, price and vendor preferences.

What is possible is not necessarily what is profitable.

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QFT

These are important distinctions.

And yes, digital publishers are specifically interested in the novella and shorter markets--in part because more people are reading on phones and ereaders while commuting, and in part, because they're looking at the use of ereaders and phones in Europe and Japan, where consumers exhibited strong interest in mobile devices and reading.

I think it will be a mixed bag. I have a door-stopper, that if I ever finish it will go straight to Kindle. The books that previously had to have special binding or be split into multiple books, like the last book in Peter Watt's Rifters trilogy (which is 4 books long) could be offered complete on Kindle. It's also easy because Kindle keeps your place in these long books.

veinglory said:

If the author is looking at being a professional ebook writer the short lengths are the currently best approach in most cases.

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Why do you think shorter lengths are currently the best approach in most cases?

veinglory said:

If they wrote a book and can't get it print published, epublishing is possible, but is it ideal--will they write more and make good money? I would suggest that they usually won't (with exceptions).

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I find it interesting that you assume only those people who can't get their book print published would be interested in epublishing.

But I do agree that - in 'most' cases - a self-published author will not go on to 'fame and fortune'. Of course that's true for authors traditionally published too.

BarbaraKE said:

Why do you think shorter lengths are currently the best approach in most cases?

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Because in the genres I am familiar with (romance, erotica) if you divide the cover price by the number of words in the book, novella pays most per word.

BarbaraKE said:

I find it interesting that you assume only those people who can't get their book print published would be interested in epublishing.

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I find it interesting that you read me as having assumed that. I was kind of implying the very opposite. That doing that would perhaps not always be a great idea if you are hoping to maximize profit per word/hour/unit of effort.

BarbaraKE said:

But I do agree that - in 'most' cases - a self-published author will not go on to 'fame and fortune'. Of course that's true for authors traditionally published too.

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I find it interesting that you assume all epublishing authors are self-published.

SJp said:

Will readers gravitate toward novellas and short stories?

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Not necessarily ... but I think those 2 forms will have a revival. Both are hard to sell in a print publishing world.

Readers now at least get a novella and/or short story offered to read, where as before it was mostly longer novels. Time will tell what sells more.

I am currently reading "A Game of Thrones" on my mobile, and I have read numerous books on that device as well. I wouldn't do that on a desktop screen, but I can't say that reading on my smartphone is particularly straining on the eyes.

I haven't tried a kindle yet, though ...

veinglory said:

Because in the genres I am familiar with (romance, erotica) if you divide the cover price by the number of words in the book, novella pays most per word.



I find it interesting that you read me as having assumed that. I was kind of implying the very opposite. That doing that would perhaps not always be a great idea if you are hoping to maximize profit per word/hour/unit of effort.



I find it interesting that you assume all epublishing authors are self-published.

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I'm finding that a lot of people assume this, including writers

SJp said:

My question never implied a distinction between traditional publication or self-pub. I'm curious what impact e-books will have on the publishing industry as a whole.

Will readers gravitate toward novellas and short stories?

Will word count still matter? Are we focused on maximizing our earning potential per word?

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I have no idea why, but people's attention spans seem to be shrinking. I think it's why trilogy's are popular. In the proposal that I sent asking my publisher if I can make my book a 3 book deal I said, "People want the story to end but they don't want it to be over" and she agreed. I think Medi hit on it.

in part because more people are reading on phones and ereaders while commuting,

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I hear a lot of people say this

Serials, too.

Serial novels, yes, as well as short stories.

There have been quite a few attempts to revive serials in ebook form over the last 10 years or so. As of yet I don't think any have been wildly successful.

veinglory said:

There have been quite a few attempts to revive serials in ebook form over the last 10 years or so. As of yet I don't think any have been wildly successful.

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We didn't have the platforms the way we do now.

I think the relaxation of physical constraints and the increasing ease of epublishing means that probably ebooks will start to become larger, especially in the self-pubbed/e-pubbed-only market, but that's not a good thing. It just means writers have an excuse not to exercise discipline and ruthless editing.

OTOH, there does seem to be a growing market for short stories/novellas for those with shorter attention spans. Light novels haven't quite caught on in the U.S. yet, but something like it probably will eventually.

Medievalist said:

That's the nightmare that textbook publishers are sweating over; the don't want that, at all.

In fact, they're keenly interested, especially in the sciences, in time-based DRM.

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Yeah. I've got no sympathy for textbook publishers. For years they've released a "new edition" every year (with minor rearrangements of text and slightly reworded problems/exercises) just to force students to buy new books and try to kill the used textbook market.

Torgo said:

We didn't have the platforms the way we do now.

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Some of those attempts are operating right now. Others closed within the last year.

veinglory said:

There have been quite a few attempts to revive serials in ebook form over the last 10 years or so. As of yet I don't think any have been wildly successful.

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I'll let you know in about a year as I release my various serial efforts.

Granted my definition of 'wildly successful' probably doesn't match yours.

veinglory said:

I find it interesting that you assume all epublishing authors are self-published.

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My original statement was...

"But I do agree that - in 'most' cases - a self-published author will not go on to 'fame and fortune'. Of course that's true for authors traditionally published too."

It was definitely not my intent to say that 'all epublishing authors are self-published'. My apologies if I offended anyone.

SJp said:

Forgive me if this has been asked before. I didn't see this question posed anywhere. With e-readers continuing to rise, do you believe we will see growing number of lengthier fiction be considered and published?

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Of the total books (we're talking ebook format here) I have out or scheduled for release, four out of seven are full-length novels in the 60,000 -80,000 word count range.